Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico City

5: Conchero Speak: Carrying the Word

5.1. The various alferezes from the mesas who have been dancing together ritually disengaging at the end of the obligation at La Villa. 87 In Chapter 3, I gave an overall idea of the structure and content of both a vigil and a dance as an outsider might observe these activities. Here I want to look at the words of the Concheros’ leitmotif—union, conformity, and conquest— which appear on all their standards and are used in their various interjections, as is the expression “El es Dios.” These verbal expressions aid dancers in knowing what it is they are aiming for, of how metaphorically they should set about “carrying the word,” that is, embodying the dance and its various practices. As expressions, they are less contingent and more deep-seated than the words of the alabanzas and will mean little to an outsider, at least initially. But they direct a dancer’s action-thought and aid in the development of the ethos of the dance. First, however, I want to look at the expression “carrying the word” (llevando la palabra). In Chapter 2, I showed that the Concheros’ names for the positions that can be achieved in the dance are militaristic and hence hierarchical. For the dance itself, however, palabra is the name given to those who are allocated named positions as the obligation starts. Their work of overseeing the development of the dance and taking responsibility for it is known as “carrying” or “bearing the word.” Simply, palabra means “word.” When linked to dar (to give) it has the meaning of “to give” in the sense of “to offer.” If a dancer is “offered the word” (and to give the word to someone is an expression used in Spanish as it is in English), this grants them the permission for whatever act f i v e Conchero Speak: Carrying the Word C o n c h e r o S p e a k : C a r r y i n g t h e W o r d 88 they may then instigate. However, the dancer who can give the word is also in most cases the one who is able to take responsibility—to carry it. At the end of an obligation, for example, as the dancers gather around their jefe to be told when and where they will next dance, that too is dar la palabra, and the jefe is empowered to make this promise because he is a jefe and because as first palabra he “carries the word.” Those who act as palabras for the duration of an obligation are given these positions precisely because they have many years of experience and know what should be done.1 As already mentioned, when a dancer leads her dance from the center, she carries the word and is empowered, even if only for a short time. Palabra refers both to the person and their ability to communicate, although this is often nonverbal in nature, such as the nod and gesture with his concha that the third palabra gives to a dancer to indicate that she can lead the next dance from the center. On a different scale, the many mesas that make up the grouping known as Santiago Tlatelolco can be referred to as La Palabra de Santiago Tlatelolco, as indeed can every mesa within that palabra. Each mesa, although in conformity with the larger grouping, has a voice and character of its own and its procedures will be somewhat different from those of the other mesas in that palabra. As a group, each can and usually does communicate something different with its dancing, although at the same time it has much in common with the larger conformity (La Palabra de Santiago Tlatelolco) of which it is a part, sometimes also called “La Palabra General.” One dancer described Ignacio Gutierrez, the most powerful jefe the Concheros have ever had, as the jefe of all jefes. She said that he was the one who llevó la palabra general de todos las palabras. Verbatim, this glosses as “he carried the general word of all the words,” which makes little sense in English. One exegesis given to me was that of all the palabras in the dance and certainly of all those who came under his leadership, his palabra was the most powerful, that is the most general, because his was able to subsume all the others...